UP: Rape survivor attacked by three men ahead of court date

A 28-year-old rape survivor was allegedly assaulted at Greater Noida by three men who also attempted to strangulate her, a day ahead of the hearing in the rape case in a local court, officials said on Thursday.

The woman, who worked in a private educational institute in the Knowledge Park area, was picked up by the assailants in a car on Wednesday, the police officials said.

The woman, who hails from Ghaziabad, was allegedly gang-raped in November, 2018 and has been fighting the case at the District and Sessions court at Surajpur, Greater Noida, they added.

"Two of the attackers are accused in the gang-rape case, while the third man involved in Wednesday's attack has not been identified so far," a police official said.

"They had hit the woman with an iron rod on her head, strangulated her and then, assuming that she was dead, dumped her on an isolated patch along the road," he added.

Subsequently, some passersby alerted the police and the woman was taken to a nearby hospital and then, shifted by her family to a hospital in Ghaziabad, where she was currently undergoing treatment, the official said.

A Noida Police spokesperson said taking cognisance of the matter, a first information report (FIR) under Indian Penal Code section 307 (attempt to murder) was registered against the trio at the Knowledge Park police station.

The woman got married in 2011 to a man in Greater Noida, but the marriage turned out to be a bitter affair reportedly due to dowry demands from her in-laws, leading to the couple getting separated a few years later, officials said.

The father of the woman, a retired Army personnel, alleged that the accused wanted to kill his daughter over the rape case.

"In November 2018, we had filed a complaint at the Kasna (now known as Beta 2) police station and the FIR was lodged under IPC section 376(D)," he told PTI.

He said on Thursday, he had gone for the hearing in the rape case at the Surajpur court, which might pass an order in the matter on Friday.